This invention relates to merchandise display racks for holding merchandise, typically folded shirts, in upright stored positions in which the merchandise is protected against crushing, and permitting easy separation of the merchandise for inspection and selection.
It has become customary in retail shops to store shirts in stacks, sometimes in bins or cubicles and sometimes simply on counters or in drawers, usually arranged in groups according to the sizes of the shirts. Typically, men's shirts will be grouped by neck size and sleeve length, for example, in stacks such as "16-32", "16-33", "16-34", etc. Size is the most important and the primary selection factor. Sometimes, either intentionally or because of mixing by customers, shirts of different sizes are mixed together into one stack.
Locating and inspecting a desired shirt can be difficult in such shops, and handling of the stack of shirts, once the desired group is formed, frequently is awkward. Frequently it is difficult to find the desired size, necessitating rummaging through the stacks. Sometimes it is necessary to pull a stack from a bin for examination after which the stack may be placed on the floor or a nearby unrelated display for convenience. Also, an individual shirt may be pulled from a stack, frequently being returned to the stack in disarray or even to the wrong stack. Moreover, such stacking frequently leads to unsightly crushing of the shirt collars.
Efforts have been made to provide for more convenient and effective display of such merchandise, ranging from individual pigeon holes in wall displays, not practical for mass merchandising, to a special shirt rack as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,160,050 for holding shirts in groups in upright positions on hinged wickets permitting purchasers to "leaf through" the shirts without removing them from the display. These shirt racks hold shirts in a convenient, grouped fashion and permit easy examination of the shirts, but never found widespread acceptance despite their obvious advantages, perhaps because of practical shortcomings in the design of the racks. These shortcomings included inadequate support for the shirts on the wickets and problems with catching of the merchandise on the wickets and in the hinge joints of the wickets.
The object of this invention is to provide a new and improved merchandise display rack having the features and advantages of the foregoing patented display rack, and without those practical shortcomings.